Thomasina’s last waltz

Concord, or The Good, the Great and the Ugly

I go to the ballet alone. This, combined with the strange state of affairs that gives me mobile reception in the SOH Opera Theatre but not the Concert Hall, meant that I could tweet some of my immediate reactions to the Australian Ballet’s Concord triple bill as the evening progressed.

The one thing I didn’t tweet (and perhaps I should’ve) was the question that’s been bugging me all year: why is Concord called “Concord”, and how does the idea of agreement or harmony relate to what’s meant to be “a journey to the centre of modern ballet”? Is it too nerdy of me to want a satisfying explanation? (I’ve read the season brochure and the program book, and scanned the blog, which for all its excellent coverage of the development of the new works doesn’t seem to have stopped to ask this question…) But I’ll let the matter drop; glass houses and all that. In any case, this was a triple bill of three disparate pieces – there’s probably little point in forcing them together under some common theme.

Although the program book suggested the original plan had been otherwise, the evening began with Por vos muero (For thee I die) by Nacho Duato. I had seen this before (in 1998), but it was only the Australian Ballet’s repertoire list that reminded me of this. The Duato ballet that I did remember seeing was Jardi Tancat, from three years before that.

Part of me thinks that Por vos muero should have been left last on the program, because it was by far the most successful and satisfying piece of the evening. And that’s not just because it allowed me to spend 40 minutes or so listening to Jordi Savall and the Spanish repertoire he does so well. This dance work was intrinsically about dance itself. The refreshingly clear-headed summary of the ballet says it all:

“In the 15th and 16th centuries, dance formed part of the cultural expression of all people, including all social hierarchies. Por vos muero pays a tribute to the pivotal role that dance played in every social event during the Spanish Renaissance.”

This is a very simple but strong conceptual foundation. No surprise, then, that it works incredibly well. The dances and canzonas of the period provide a logical and grateful musical fabric – and much as I might lament that the music wasn’t live, I wasn’t exactly complaining. [The score incorporated poetry too; unfortunately the program didn’t include any translations, so I have no idea what this contributed to the overall work.] The choreography was marvellously musical, with just a hint of period gestures, more often in the patterns made on the floor than in the movements themselves. The costumes took us to realms of emerald green, violet and midnight blue within an overall darkness suggestive of old Spanish paintings. Again, there were discreet period touches. The women’s skirts, in particular, seemed almost formless, so unlike the highly structured garments of the Renaissance, but ­the magic was in the way they took shape when in motion. The props were similarly abstracted (masks for example) until real censers made an appearance with what, from stalls row J, smelled like real incense.

Scuola di ballo, which followed, was the opposite in every respect. Where Por vos muero was subtle, richly sensuous and beautiful, Scuola was highly coloured and heavy-handed. Even high camp needs a light touch if it’s to yield frothy comedy.

I’ve not seen the original (footage resides in the National Film and Sound Archive), so I’m not sure whether to point the finger at Alexei Ratmansky or Léonide Massine, who created the ballet in 1933. What I am sure of is that I like Boccherini, I like Françaix, I like Goldoni, and my impressions of Massine’s works in the past (Les Présages, Symphonie fantastique) have been very favourable. But I simply couldn’t find it in my heart to like Scuola di ballo.

Valerie Lawson’s fascinating program article about the “studio ballet” did Scuola no favours by bringing to mind far superior (Bournonville’s Conservatoire, Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun) or much, much funnier (Béjart’s The Competition) examples of the genre.

There was one very beautiful, admirable thing in Scuola – something for which I’m sure we can thank Massine. When the talented Rosine arrives in the class it is necessary for her to demonstrate her superior natural gifts. What’s telling (and lovely) is that she does this not with technical fireworks but with an expressive and musical adagio. Without going into specifics, I was very glad to see the message being given that razzle-dazzle does not equate with artistry, however much the former may make an audience erupt in squealing applause.

Por vos muero I could not fault; Scuola di ballo left me cringing. The final piece, Dyad 1929, prompted a mixed response. The music was the recent Pulitzer prize-winning piece by Steve Reich, Double Sextet. This work can be played by 12 musicians or by six with a pre-recorded tape. The program didn’t credit the 12 (or six) musicians, nor did it mention this rather interesting aspect of the musical score. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was six-plus-tape for this performance (although it may simply have been amplified sound that I was hearing), but I didn’t think to investigate the pit during interval and so can’t say for sure.

I’m going to be nice about the music, since it was commissioned by an ensemble for which I have a lot of admiration. Actually, I don’t need a pretext to be nice about it; this is a strong piece that deserves its accolades. But Reich’s pieces do have this one problem (for me). I like to close my eyes when I listen to them. Not because they’re soporific (as the unkind might say), but because I like to trace in my mind’s eye the subtle transitions of textures and harmony and to let the hypnotic aspects of the music take full effect.

So several times during the performance my eyelids drifted shut until some small voice reminded me that there was dancing to be watched! So take this with a grain of salt if you like: the choreography was very pleasing in its form and balance – let’s say its geometry – and impressive in its virtuosity.

My gripe with Dyad 1929 is with its stated concept, which is either half-baked or poorly explained. Where the inspiration and intent of Por vos mueros could be summed up in a few sentences, Dyad 1929 still didn’t really make sense after four paragraphs. Apparently aviation and the first flight over the South Pole was a key inspiration for choreographer Wayne McGregor, but you’d be hard pressed to see how that manifested itself in the final creative work. (Kate Scott’s blog post on the ballet admits that the other half of the diptych, Dyad 1909, was a much more literal realisation of McGregor’s interests.) Given that the ballet, in itself, had all the potential to be very satisfying, I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t have been better to ditch the supposed inspiration, tribute to the influence of Diaghilev, yadda yadda, and simply offer it as the abstract work that it seemed to be.

Ultimately this is a matter not of choreography or of dancing, but of how the art form is presented to its audience. Yes, we in this modern age love words about art – we’ve inherited that tendency from the 19th century – but sometimes less is more and sometimes being more straightforward (vide Por vos mueros) and less clever or contrived (Dyad 1929) pays off. They say, for writing, that if you can’t express your ideas in a clear, simple way, then your ideas are probably faulty. Allowing for the fact that a choreographer’s mode of expression is movement rather than words, I do wonder whether the success and power of Nacho Duato’s ballets is related (cause? effect?) to the fact that his themes and concepts can be communicated, in words, so convincingly.

A piano recital and some unnecessary minimalism

On Friday the 13th I had the good luck to hear a piano recital presented by City Recital Hall. Curiously, the only publicity I’d noticed for it was an e-newsletter I received, which sent me diving for my credit card. Advertising via the conventional outlets was either incredibly discreet or simply non-existent. But maybe the people at Angel Place know what they’re doing: when you’re presenting the kind of artist who impresses not through glamour and hype but through commanding pianism and profound musicality, perhaps the word will simply get around. In any case, although the upper gallery wasn’t opened, the rest of the hall was respectably full, and not just on the keyboard side.

The artist in question was Stephen Kovacevich – and I confess to being a fan. In recent years I’ve been known to put my hand up for interstate pre-concert talks on the grounds that he will be the soloist. Which points, among other things, to the fact that a Sydney appearance was long overdue. (I think his last visit here was for the concert in 2005 when Yannick Nézet-Séguin jumped for Maazel.)

He was playing Bach, Schumann and Beethoven, with the Diabelli Variations as the program culmination and highlight. From where I sat the recital got better and better as it went along, by the time I’d heard the tenderly shaped Schumann and the muscular conception of the Beethoven I was even more a fan than I was when it began. But in saying that I’m also admitting that I found the Bach strangely disappointing.

Who am I to fault a great musician and pianist like Stephen Kovacevich? Well perhaps I can’t when, as a colleague said, his Bach convinced on its own terms. It was intensely musical – true – but it didn’t quite convince me on Bach’s terms. A French ouverture in D major: this alone calls for a more dashing interpretation, one that calls to mind harpsichord flourishes and dancing articulations even as it exploits the singing potential of the piano. What we heard was more ruminative, almost too private in view of the rhetorical clues offered by key and musical gestures. 

But ultimately this is a quibble: I’d happily rock up to hear the program all over again.

And that would be?

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Partita IV in D, BWV828
Ouverture
Allemande
Courante
Aria
Sarabande
Menuet
Gigue

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op.15
Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and People)

Kuriose Geschichte (A Curious Story)

Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Bluff)

Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child)

Glückes genug (Happy Enough)

Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event)

Träumerei (Dreaming)

Am Kamin (At the Fireside)

Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse)

Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious)

Fürchtenmachen (Frightening)

Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep)

Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op.120
[And here you can imagine, if you will, 33 lines of tempo indications, which I’m not going to type out here.]

I’ve taken the trouble to list the program in detail because the presenter didn’t. The program sheet, such as it was, looked like this.

Now, believe it or not, I have no problem with a simple program sheet, listing the pieces, sans notes. But when that sheet contains minimalist publicity titles and nothing more about the music I get cross: that a major venue in a major city presenting a major artist should so neglect its audience is embarrassing as well one mammoth missed opportunity.

When there are no program notes it’s even more essential that the program listing contain all the necessary details. So much can be gleaned from these: the key gives advance orientation of mode (and in baroque music, character); composer dates help place the work historically; opus numbers suggest when in the composer’s career the work was written; a formal title will convey useful facts such as the kind of theme and the number of variations; translations are a courtesy; and, above all, movement headings aid navigation as the music progresses and, in the case of a piece like Kinderszenen, are absolutely essential to appreciating what the composer is doing and following the emotional journey.

Perhaps it was thought that the audience would be almost entirely piano connoisseurs, familiar with these three works from the standard repertoire and so not needing that kind of detail in their “order of service”. But I disagree. I’ve studied the Bach as a piano student, I’ve played the Schumann for pleasure and I’ve written (at length) about the Beethoven, and still I would have appreciated having a detailed program listing. No one’s memory is perfect, and in the Schumann I could put names to only three of the miniatures. Meanwhile, what about the poor soul who might not be familiar the music?!

In any case, piano recital audiences in Sydney are more inclined to buy program books than nearly any other kind of concert audience – clearly they seek more information, not less. So if there’s one kind of concert where it’s worth going to the trouble of publishing a “proper” program it’s the kind that took place on Friday night.

Terminology and jargon

Over at Standpoint magazine, the new home of Jessica Duchen’s blog, another conversation has started up on the perennial subject of program notes. My initial comment was on the long side, so I’m bringing a tangential thought over here rather than trespass further.

It’s this: when it comes to talking about writing in program books, we need to make a clearer distinction between technical terms (which can often be helpful) and jargon (which generally is not). [Disclaimer: jargon isn’t quite the right word, but it will have to do for now.]

Jessica’s piece was prompted by a column by David Lister in The Independent. It’s called “You need a PhD for a night at the opera” and going by the examples he gives from the Royal Opera’s Tristan und Isolde, he’s right. There are breezy references to Lacan, without the benefit of a wikipedia link, and beginnings like this: “Love is an act of radical transgression that suspends all sociosymbolic links and, as such, has to culminate in the ecstatic self-obliteration of death. The corollary to this axiom is that love and marriage are incompatible; within the universe of sociosymbolic obligations, true love can occur only in the guise of adultery.” As Thomasina would say, Eurghhh!

David Lister is right to complain about over-intellectualised writing that cloaks everything in abstractions. There’s a place for thinking and writing of this type, but perhaps not in the Royal Opera’s program book.

But it’s not right to conflate that particular flaw with a quite different one. Jessica conveys it with an analogy: “…can you imagine if the notes on the ballet set out a blow-by-blow account of the choreography, tracing every landmark grande pirouette, grand jeté and port de bras with in-the-know terminology spread as thick as marmalade?”

Bernard Shaw made his own analogy by analysing Hamlet’s soliloquy:

“Shakespeare, dispensing with the customary exordium, announces his subject at once in the infinitive, in which mood it is presently repeated after a short connecting passage in which, brief as it is, we recognise the alternative and negative forms on which so much of the significance of repetition depends. Here we reach a colon; and a pointed pository phrase, in which the accent falls decisively on the relative pronoun, brings us to the first full stop.”

Personally I find technical terms – in any art form – far less offensive than the abstract jargon that’s sometimes trotted out, especially in the visual arts and in certain kinds of theatre.

After all, a word like “pizzicato” or “tremolo” or “chord” or even “recapitulation” ultimately refers to something real and tangible: you can see/hear it, you can attach a real experience to the technical word. That’s why kiddies have no trouble learning all this and more when they’re studying practical music.

Yes, technical terms can be over-used, or used inconsiderately. Some technical terms are simply too advanced for a diverse readership. But ultimately they lend themselves to being helpful because they are  precise and tangible and, once known, they focus attention on specifics.

What is never helpful is the jargon, as I’m calling it, the loading of writing with abstractions (“where new adjacencies might reactivate latent meanings” anyone?). Instead of focusing the reader’s attention on things that can be seen and heard, this kind of writing fosters thinking that is both muddled and disengaged. Once you’ve deciphered it, you’re not necessarily any closer to noticing and appreciating the magical things that are happening on stage in front of you.

But it’s fair to say that the kind of obfuscation in program books that David Lister highlights is a trap that goes hand in hand with opera’s current obsession with the director and the “concept”. Fortunately, concert music (ironically a much more abstract art form) doesn’t lend itself to this approach. With the possible exception of a few old-guard new music circles – you’re unlikely encounter corollaries to axioms or suspensions of sociosymbolic links in concert program books.

At least not in the Antipodes…

Again

So I wonder… will we be hearing little Prokofiev encores after each of our Mahler symphonies next year? 

What would you put after the Symphony of a Thousand, for example? Something short, you’d hope. Has anyone arranged a Vision Fugitive for orchestra and large choir?

Jacarandas: the quintessential Sydney tree.

Posted via room temperature

Ignore this everyone. Just trying something out.

Testing the possibilities of posterous, since, as Handel said, "I have a t'ought."

Posted via room temperature

Getting “into” classical music

The other day FK of Classical Review posed the question: “Would more people get ‘into’ classical music by hearing it first on CD or in a concert hall?”

I’m assuming the question is about getting into classical music generally, as opposed to getting into specific musical works. And since it’s a hypothetical question as it stands, I’m going to turn it into something more personal if not necessarily more scientific:

What got you “into” classical music?

Was it hearing the music on recordings, was it hearing the music in the concert hall, was it hearing the music used in some incidental way (soundtracks, advertisements…),  or was it something else?

This post is my answer. You’re invited to share a response in the comments, or to write your own blog post and leave a link here. (Does that make it a meme? Maybe.)

*****

I got into classical music as a kid, when I was too young to be taken to formal concerts, but not too young to ask for my favourite records to be put on.

The family record collection was probably 75 per cent musical theatre and 25 per cent classical (orchestral) music.  So strictly speaking, the musical genre that I first got “into” was musical theatre and I got into that solely via recordings, since I was in late primary school before I saw any musicals on the stage. (By contrast I’ve never been interested in recordings of opera and my interest in that genre is solely from performances.)

Anyhow, classical music. Recordings first. No prepping or priming or earnest guidance from my parents. The music was there simply to be listened to and enjoyed. I didn't particularly identify what I was listening to as “classical” music. It was all just music, from Scheherazade to Eagle Rock. I knew I preferred the Rimsky-Korsakov by a long shot, but I wasn’t making any particular genre distinctions with the exception of one: singing and no-singing.

But recordings were only part of the picture. There was a piano in the house, my big sister was taking lessons, and at some point I began fooling around, trying to work out notation with the aid of one of those paper charts that sit at the back of the keyboard and improvising what I called “fairy music”. This was probably maddening, formal lessons were in order!

But there’s more, and if this next factor wasn’t the real reason I got “into” classical music, it certainly has influenced my taste in the long term. It’s dance, specifically ballet. I first heard live orchestral music not in a concert hall but in the theatre, in a production of Giselle that I saw when I was about 6 or 7. The first accomplished pianist I heard play regularly was the ballet school accompanist. The music I most liked to listen to, I realise now, was often ballet music or at least well-suited to dance. My favourite mode of “listening” involved moving. There were plenty of concert works I heard for the first time in the theatre, for example Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G (which I loved, aged 9) and Webern Opus 5 (which I hated, aged 14). And I grew up revelling in the colour and buoyancy of Russian and French music and the elegant rhythms and phrases of baroque music.

All in all, it was a gradual immersion that began at a very young age, first with recordings and then through the theatre. My attraction to classical concerts is really part of a bigger love for live performance generally, and it seems to have emerged as much from a childhood of going to plays and ballets as from the music itself.

To my shame, the memory of my earliest classical concerts is really hazy. There was my first studio concert, in which I played some little beginner piece in the midst of a program of lieder and advanced repertoire (the other students were all much older and mostly singers). My teacher also conducted the Western Sinfonia, and I recall going to a couple of those concerts, probably when I was in primary school. Around the same time there was the SSO concert in the Sydney Town Hall to which I was taken in fervent anticipation of seeing and hearing a harp. There was a harp, but not as soloist; I was very disappointed.

The first orchestral concert that I really remember was the SSO, in the Opera House, with Jean-Pierre Rampal as soloist. I was at least 12, because I’d begun learning flute. Mum and I set off with the primary goal of hearing Rampal play Mozart. I remember the concert so vividly because I emerged from it having lost all interest in Rampal, and Mozart – I had just heard Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra. Woah! Now that was exciting stuff. But by that time I was well and truly “into” classical music, I knew that was its name, and I also knew that I belonged to a nerdy little minority. And I didn’t care because I was in love.

Peter Grimes

Others are way more qualified to write about opera than I am, but I want to enthuse a little. You’ve been warned.

Here’s the scenario: someone who’d done a half-show at the previous OA production he attended raved to me about Peter Grimes. Enthusiastic reports came from one, two, three other trusted sources. So I knew I had to go, especially since I still bear the bruises from kicking myself for missing Billy Budd. The final prod came in the form of an attractive rush price. Now there were no “barriers”, as the marketing bods would say. It turned out to be one of those nights where I saw a lot of familiar faces. Heaps of industry acquaintances and colleagues, performers, various “important people”, the odd composer. This was good to see: an audience full (literally full) of the kind of people whose opinions are likely to hold sway.

I’d not seen this opera or listened to it in its entirety before. Like many orchestrally biased music-lovers, my appreciation is for the Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes. But I’m not sure I’ve seen any Opera Australia production that I’ve liked better, has been better sung and played, or made more musical and dramatic sense.

The storm-painted curtain opens on a period piece, a town hall in all its sturdy detail, an interior not from the early 19th century but c.1940. It’s Britten’s era, in other words, not Crabbe’s, and Britten’s sympathies emerge unhindered. The hall becomes the set for the whole opera, shifting easily from indoor to outdoor communal spaces with just the subtlest of variations (some of them carried out by possibly the most illustrious stage-hand ever: Peter Carroll as the silent Dr Crabbe). There are basically no private spaces in this opera, barring one, which I’ll get to.

The set conveyed no real sense of the sea, and you could argue that this is a (minor) weakness when the music so overpoweringly redolent of the sea. But there’s reason in the madness, I think. First, the music needs very little help; its evocations are even more powerful for not being mirrored in any literal or naturalistic attempt to represent the sea or the shore. Second, and more important, it allows us to step back slightly from the plot and see the theme: this is an opera that ultimately is about community, public opinion, and gathering together vs social isolation and rejection. I think we can be sympathetic to Britten’s Grimes in a way that it’s nearly impossible to feel for the Crabbe Grimes because he’s recast as the dreamer and an outcast, battling futilely against an implacable, tight-knit community. Crabbe, on the other hand, portrays a Grimes whose sole motivation seems to be the desire to exert power over a weaker character. You don’t go all weepy when he goes mad with despair. You do when Stuart Skelton does.

The one truly private space is Grimes’s hut, in Act II. Here Neil Armfield proved that less is more. There’s an interlude. Dr Crabbe methodically clears the stage, then moves to the curtained platform at the rear of the hall and beckons it forward. And the whole wall moves, slowly, inexorably to the front of the stage proper. It’s the simplest thing, really, but the effect was oppressive and somehow damning. Shudder. 

From Britten himself came tiny discoveries and exquisite pleasures. Some of the text setting in Widow Sedley’s part is astonishingly effective, with such striking colours in the accompaniment. Her amateur sleuthing and predictions of doom are clearly meant to be a pain in the proverbial, but I didn’t want it to stop.

There was no faulting the cast: Skelton as Grimes; Peter Coleman-Wright as Balstrode; Susan Gritton as the one character I can’t quite understand, Ellen Orford; some serious-looking casting in the supporting roles and an adorable pair of “Nieces”. Aside from the mad scene (or the scene in which the orchestra switches off its sconces and Grimes’s life totally falls apart), Skelton had me wowed with his amazing pianissimos. At one point he was singing so softly while projecting so unerringly, that, as was commented to me, it was as if he was singing from offstage. And then to bloom from that into a perfectly shaped crescendo. Stunning. Is there nothing he can’t do? But always in the service of the music. The same is to be said for Coleman-Wright.

I’m not sure how to sum this one up, because everything seemed so right and so wonderful and so moving. Let’s just say it was, without hesitation or question, a “stay to the end” evening at the Opera House. And that’s high praise.

Maintaining appearances

There’s an interesting syndrome going around right now: it seems to be a circulatory problem as it results in cold feet, which in turn leads to the late changing of concert promotional titles. So tonight I heard “The Girl with the Golden Flute”, according to the subs brochure and the program book, or “Tchaikovsky Serenade”, going by the posters and recent advertising (not to mention the tumultuous applause this work received).

Alternatively, it could have been called The Girl with the Purple Frock, the said frock being a simple but elegantly shaped number in a lovely shade of royal purple. More’s the pity then that its wearer felt the need to keep tugging at the top of the bodice as if she feared it would fall down. I’m sure Chanel said something about how you should be able to put on your clothes, look in the mirror and then forget all about them. Goes double for stage wear.

While I’m on a clothing theme, the orchestra was decked out in new outfits which threaten to be selectively rather than universally flattering. I’m unconvinced about the capri pants for the women (exposed ankles work only on long and slender limbs), and there’s no agreement on exactly where on the leg the hem of the overdress should hit: it seems a bit too short on the taller women, oddly long on the shorter women. The men’s overshirts haven’t changed much that I could see, but are possibly more tailored – a good thing.

This program had always included an element of uncertainty: the idea was that in each concert you’d hear either the Vine flute concerto or one by Serebrier, together with another concerto by Izarra. Somewhere along the way Izarra was dropped from the concerts altogether and so we got both Vine and Serebrier. Or so it seemed.

A flute-playing friend who knows the Vine told me at interval that we hadn’t heard the whole piece, only (I think this was it) the third movement preceded by a portion of the second. The reference to structure in the SMH review suggested that the whole concerto had been performed on the Saturday at least. So maybe there was growing concern about the program being too long because, as so often happens with commissions, the new work by Peteris Vasks had turned out to be 25 minutes instead of the expected 10. Not that I was complaining on that point, Vasks being a favourite of mine and the music being really effective. (Now his is a flute concerto I’d like to play.)

When, after interval, the soloist came on with just her golden flute in hand, I began to have doubts about the Serebrier, which apparently features the alto flute in its fourth movement tango. It’s even called “Flute Concerto with Tango”; I’m guessing what we heard was just the Flute Concerto. And as the program annotator pointed out to me later, this made a nonsense of at least some of what had been published about the piece.

Left unexplained, discrepancies between program book and performance always bother me. And that’s not just a personal aversion to “mistakes”. If someone is genuinely trying to use the program as a navigational guide then they are either going to be misled or left confused if what they read doesn’t match what they’re hearing. I don’t think it’s too much for performers to announce from the stage (especially when they’re good at it) where changes have been made, perhaps even why, but at least what.

There was a little encore for solo flute. Apparently it was from Sweden. The composer’s name (spoken over laughter) sounded a little like Alfvén, the music not so much. In its modal qualities it reminded me more of those recorder variations that Jakob van Eyck wrote to entertain people strolling in the Utrecht cemetery (a popular pastime in the 16th century), only a whole lot more showy. The applause only confirmed that we’ve lost none of the pleasure we instinctively feel in admiring a virtuoso performance. Faster, Higher, Louder – it works for music too.

But no surprises for guessing that everyone was going to love the Tchaikovsky Serenade for strings best of all. It’s gorgeous, adorable music – made to be loved. The performance itself had an uncommon vigour that was instantly appealing. You could see (literally) some of the things that make a standing chamber orchestra so very attractive to an audience: that moment in the Elegie when four first violins angled their bodies in towards each other for a perfect, muted unison giving a visual complement to the aural effect; or when individual musicians leant across the ensemble, sharing melodies with counterparts in other sections. This stuff isn’t just for show, but it’s part of what makes a performance one. And when that happens you don’t really mind what name they give it.

Encores

There are critics who’ve been known to scurry out of a concert hall before the encores, lest this – and the audience response – somehow influence their assessment. Or the rationale might be that only the formal, planned portion of the concert is worthy of review. Others stick around, but might choose to make no mention of the encores.

That’s wrong, I think. Like them or not, encores are a part of the performance and invariably they are a planned element in the concert, even if they’re not publicised as such.

More important: encores can be terribly revealing – in choice and interpretation.

Orchestral encores are a rare treat in Sydney, and usually they are a treat. But last week I heard a couple that were no treat at all, despite being well chosen. In both cases, if I’d been assigning “points”, the concert’s score would have been lowered considerably by the encores, much in the way that a perfect 10 on the beam is squandered when the gymnast fails to stick her landing at the end. Or perhaps a better analogy would be to imagine the gymnast sticking her landing but then sticking her tongue out at the judges.

Which is kind of what happened. It almost made me wonder whether there mightn’t be a fundamental antipathy to encores behind it all (and later I heard that this is more or less the case). To which all I can say is, if you dislike them that much, stick to your guns and don’t play them; if you are going to play them, honour the music and the audience.

I’ll have to admit right now to being in a minority. Whether through genuine pleasure or misguided politeness, there were close on 2,500 people heaping up the applause while I and a handful of others sat numb. But what for?

On the first night it was a Brahms Hungarian dance so distorted, so grotesque, you’d swear Dali had gotten at it. Through the centuries – CPE Bach, Chopin, Debussy – we’ve had clear instructions and beautiful models for how a stylish and musical rubato works. You play with tempo on the surface, sure, but without ever losing sight of the underlying pulse; the rhythmic logic is always apparent, the integrity of the music assured. But this performance began with the beat pulled around like taffy, to the point of smearing the pulse altogether. (The score calls for none of this, by the way – there is a pause in the first bar, and shortly after that a three-bar slowing followed by a return to the initial lively(!) tempo, but that’s pretty much the extent of the liberties Brahms expects.)

It’s concert music, I know, but you couldn’t even have imagined dancing to this. It sounded like simple showing off: a demonstration of how far a phenomenal technique and an ensemble of fine musicians will allow you to stretch and contract the beat. Alas, the result had nothing with the composer’s intentions to do. Give me a less impressive technique and the humility of true musicianship any day. And I wish the review had mentioned it, because observations such as this one about the beautiful performance of the opening work – “an overriding strategy to carefully realise the composer’s precisely notated intentions” – were completely contradicted by what went unreported at the end.

Later in the week the pain was short and swift. Perhaps a little too swift: I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard the Trépak from Nutcracker skated quite so quickly. But on arriving home I was reminded that Gergiev’s recording takes it nearly as fast, only he understands that you have to give men (a) time to make those magnificent Cossack jumps, and (b) some downbeats to propel them into the air. This is a Russian dance after all, and it needs some virility. Again, it was all the more disappointing given that the opening work (Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead) had been given a performance that was not only impressively shaped but filled with obvious affection and respect.

Perhaps reviewers should pay more attention to encores and hold them to the same artistic standard as the main program, then presenters, performers (and audiences too) might be less inclined to regard them merely as essential crowd-pleasing fluff.